THE ORIGIN OF MADAME MANHANDS: PART VII

or

STOMPING UP THE STAIRCASE TO SUCCESS—ONE SKULL AT A TIME!

Greetings, most honored reader!

Now as our chronicle of the rise of Madame Manhands comes to a close, we have a good idea of what she has overcome, the hardships, travails, losses and victories. In today’s transmission, we see as she comes to Bryan and Nikki’s hometown, Bordertown, to take on a new enemy—the city’s criminal underworld!

Of almost all the “professions,” perhaps none is and/or ever was more “male” than that of the criminal. This is especially so for their leaders—the crime lords. Indeed, few are crueler, more brutal, or tougher than a crime lord (the secret to their success!). Nonetheless, Manhands either defeated, outmaneuvered them, or came to an understanding with each of them as she made her way up the slippery pole of criminal success. Thanks to the files of the Borderland Imperial Sheriffs and Iron Dragon’s city guards, let us examine whom she faced, her odds in overcoming him, and the final outcome:

Madame Manhands

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: MADAME MANHANDS
AGE: 34
HEIGHT: 5’ 10”
WEIGHT: 178 LBS.
GANG: Crimson Cape Gang

First, we have Madame Manhands. We already know a good deal about her, both from these Origin transmissions (FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH, and SIXTH) as well as from HERE.

Let us now turn our attention instead to her former gang competitors for the pinnacle (or nadir) of success in the Bordertown crime scene.

Chain-Face

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: CHAIN-FACE (aka Scale-Male and Iron-top)
HEIGHT: 6’
WEIGHT: 220
GANG: Crimson Cape Gang

Chain-Face was the former leader of the Crimson Cape Gang prior to Madame Manhands. He had gained his moniker the old-fashioned way: “He earned it!” Thanks to a run-in with either a dragon or a fireball-hurling wizard (accounts vary), Chain-Face’s skin became grafted to the mail coif of his chainmail from the neck up.

When Manhands first came to Bordertown, Chain-Face, impressed by her intelligence, skills, and perhaps beauty, made her his lieutenant. Increasingly, Manhands came to make more and more of the gang’s decisions. One day, the brutal but insecure Chain-Face called her on it. During one of their private “night conferences,” Manhands (as the story goes) jokingly challenged the hood to a wrestling contest, the winner of which would be the leader of the Crimson Cape Gang. Chain-Face accepted and lost. Thereafter, he became the lieutenant and Manhands the leader. Perhaps growing tired of Chain-Face’s boorishness, Manhands one night invited the brute into her bedroom for a night conference, a conference from which Chain-Face was never seen again.

(NOTE: Coincidentally, a couple of days later, Manhands “busted out” from the Iron-Dragon’s dungeon prisons everyone’s favorite lovable loser (lovable except when he’s shooting crossbow bolts into your lung)—the Terminator, who, replacing Chain-Face, became the new lieutenant and Manhand’s partner in the daily private bedtime “Night Conference” sessions.)

ODDS for Manhands: 10 to 1. The idiot couldn’t even beat Manhands in a wrestling match.
Current Status: Unknown.

El Blanco

TRUE NAME: Gaeleath Torrel
ALIAS: El Blanco
HEIGHT: 6’ 0”
WEIGHT: 190 lbs
GANG: Crimson Cape Gang

El Blanco was a Mountain Elf, aka Snow Elf. Although Mountain elves were generally good in nature, Gaeleath Torrel proved the exception. The Ted Bundy of the elvish race, Gaeleath demonstrated cruelty at a young age beginning with smaller creatures—faeries and sprites—before eventually graduating towards females of his own kind. Driven off by his clan, Torrel took refuge in the cities of men. He quickly then became a mercenary and took on the name El Blanco, employing deadly prowess with his mini-crossbow and using bolts tipped in poison (or alternatively, a sleep agent for those victims he chose to torture in his leisure). El Blanco was fairly cultured, enjoyed Wood Elf wine, and could speak knowledgeably on the topic of S&M.

Manhands’ Odds: 2 to 1

CURRENT STATUS: El Blanco’s perverse propensities eventually became a liability and placed the gang at risk. That, and the unease Manhands felt around him, led her to the decision to throw him under the bus. El Blanco managed to escape the authorities but he swore revenge on Manhands. His whereabouts are unknown.

Lowbrow

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: LOWBROW (AKA, THE BRUTE, THE OGRE, THE INHUMAN PIN-CUSHION)
HEIGHT: 7’ 4”
WEIGHT: 470 lbs
GANG: Association of the Five Daggers

Lowbrow, half-ogre, brute and bully, was the former leader of the Association of the Five Daggers. The thug known simply as Lowbrow (the product of an Ogre/human union) began his criminal career as a brutal bodyguard and enforcer for the previous leader of the Association of the Five Daggers, one Urgdung the Knife. Urgdung was never careful with his words. One night, after carelessly insulting Lowbrow’s intelligence (his usual hobby), the brute—without thinking (his usual mode of operation)—struck Urgdung in the head with his bare fist, killing the gang lord on the spot.

The other gang members then immediately hailed Lowbrow as the new leader. However, having great strength does not a crime lord make, and the gang seemed to rudder about aimlessly, without purpose, planning, or strategy under Lowbrow’s leadership (or lack thereof). Though Lowbrow himself was supremely strong and tough (he even allowed assassins to stab him in the back, allowing their ineffective daggers to hang there, apparently harmlessly, as proof of his toughness), he was quite stupid.

MANHANDS’ ODDS: 5 to 1. Even Manhands’ great strength and speed would be almost useless against this monster. Fortunately, the problem of Lowbrow was eventually handled for her by one of the gang’s lieutenants, the Shot. In their epic showdown, the Shot led his small-brained opponent down a special pre-prepared alley where a hidden deep pit filled with long spikes awaited. The Shot jumped over the hidden pit. Lowbrow, however, did not. Nor did and ever crawl back out either, showing there’s a limit to the number of pins even the biggest of pin cushions can accept.

The Pizzler

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: THE PIZZLER
HEIGHT: 5’ 11”
WEIGHT: 160 lbs
GANG: The Pizzler Gang

Though generally thought to be a conjurer of cheap tricks and quite mad, there was definitely power about this mysterious figure, the former leader of the eponymously named “Pizzler Gang.” The “Pizzler” claimed to derive his extraordinary mystical power from the Land of Pizzle, where, he claimed, he was a personal favorite of the Grand Pizzle himself. Many, however, thought that the Pizzler’s magical experiments had robbed him of his sanity, as he was heard to often mutter to himself, often using “pizzle” as both a noun, verb, and adjective (for example, “That spell left me utterly pizzled!”). Nonetheless, the Pizzler was certainly a force to reckon with due to his fantastic ability to open dimensional doors quickly and without apparent effort. This would have placed his odds against Manhands, whom he called his preferred “Pizzle Grinder,” at 4 to 1.

CURRENT STATUS: Though he attempted to create an alliance with Manhands (supposedly so she could “grind his Pizzle”), the Pizzler was first confronted by Magorious, who using his mysterious mind-powers, could not be overcome by mere dimension doors. After this confrontation, the Pizzler was never seen again in Bordertown, presumably having escaped to the “Land of Pizzle.”

Golem-Head

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: THE GOLEM, THE MONSTER
HEIGHT: 7’ 0”
WEIGHT: 400 lbs.
GANG: The Rock-Fist Clan

The man known as Golem-Head not only possessed the head of a golem (a flesh golem, to be exact), but the entire body of one as well. Urban legend has it that some decades ago the man who would later become known as Golem-Head had once made a Faustian Bargain with the legendary mage Xarkad. Xarkad was the foremost mystical expert on the creation of golems and the transfer of consciousness thereto. What Xarkad received from this is not recorded, but Golem-Head’s mind was transferred to the body of a flesh golem. This conferred upon him the strength of a dozen men, invulnerability to cold, electricity, and nearly all physical attacks.

Thus, one would be excused for thinking that someone having such power would quickly rise to become the king of all the underworld, if not the entire region. However, not our friend Golem-Head. Golem-Head, despite his vast physical power, was not especially imaginative, bright, or perhaps even ambitious. Instead, though one of the first crime lords in Bordertown, he remains the only who hasn’t been ousted, murdered, assassinated, or run-out.

ODDS: Manhands would find herself in a difficult position were she to confront the nearly indestructible, invulnerable Golem-Head. For Golem-Head possessed almost no physical weaknesses whatsoever, save for perhaps fire, and his brain. Indeed, it is the latter that Manhands has exploited time and again to outmaneuver the older gangster, using cajoling, trickery, lying, and other deceits to stay one step ahead of this dull creature. Could it be that taking the body of a golem also conferred some of the monster’s sluggishness, mentally and physically?

The Noose

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: THE NOOSE (AKA, THE MAN WHO COULD NOT BE HUNG, “THE UNHANGABLE”)
HEIGHT: 6’ 3”
WEIGHT: 295 lbs.
GANG: Westside Thieves Guild

The Noose , with his mystical rope of wrangling, tangling and strangling, this feared bruiser, the former head of the Westside Thieves Guild, always wore the black hood which he wore at the hour of his (first) execution by the Iron Dragon. The story goes that when he was finally caught and executed by Dragan, his body was torn down and thrown into a shallow grave in the criminals’ graveyard outside the city. That night, the man who would become the Noose, rose again—neither dead nor undead! Simply, his thick, powerful neck had withstood the pressures of the hanging. True, his face was mottled from lack of oxygen, but he had somehow survived, though a little more insane than what he was (a lack of oxygen and near-death execution can do this to a person).

Retrieving the instruments of his destruction—the hood and rope—from the courtyard, this criminal took a new name—the Noose— always wearing his old hood to cover not only his identity but also the hideous disfigurement resulting from his failed execution. Furthermore, the Noose came to understand that the rope used to hang him was an evil, sentient mystical rope which would heed his commands. He attributed his survival not only to his own thick neck but to his subconscious commands to the rope.

CURRENT STATUS:

Subsequently, thanks to this rope, he soon took his position among the princes of Bordertown’s underworld. Moreover, he constantly strengthened the ligaments, tendons, and muscles of his neck. He claimed that no one could hang him. The Iron Dragon, unlike most of these hoods (which, as you have no doubt noticed, were for the most part not the sharpest knives in the drawer) captured the Noose again. However, this second time he decided not to hang the Noose. Instead, he ordered an interesting new device of execution from Bossiya called a Guillotine. The Guillotine did not hang necks but rather cut them and had no problem doing so to the Noose’s. Thus ended the sordid criminal career of the Noose, once and for all.

ODDS: 1 to 3: Manhands, in her only conflict with the Noose (something over territory) found herself on the back-foot end against the sheer strength, toughness, and magic rope of this walking monster and barely escaped. Fortunately for her, the Iron Dragon took care of the Noose for her. (NOTE: After the Noose’s demise, he was replaced by a relatively minor sub-lieutenant code-named “Scrap,” who also soon found herself a captive in the Iron Dragon’s dungeons, and was secretly replaced by Nikki Dragan.)

The Toker

TRUE NAME: UNKNOWN
ALIAS: THE TOKER (MUSHROOM MASTER, THE MIDNIGHT SMOKER, THE PIED PIPER OF WEED)
HEIGHT: 6’ 4”
WEIGHT: 220 lbs
GANG: None

The Toker was the former but uncrowned King of the Bordertown Crime world before Magorious came to town. The Toker had the corner on Bordertown’s illicit drug and narcotics trade, leaving many Bordertown lives in shambles through his dealing of various mushrooms, weeds, powders and poppy extracts. What made the Toker especially dangerous, however, was his use of hallucinogenic drugs on his opponents, via his mystical sentient toke pipe. This pipe allowed the Toker to mystically blow smoke rings at his enemies, creating various effects, from somnolence to powerful hallucinogenic episodes. Eye witnesses have reported the targets of Toker’s pipe greedily gnawing away their own fingers and hands, probably thinking they were biting into pieces of sirloin steak.

Current Status:

Furthermore, rumor has It that even Magorius fled their first meeting. However, that same witness said that at their second, Magorious brought a couple of hooded companions. In that that second meeting it was the Toker who fled, and quickly, supposedly with the understanding that he would sell his wares in other markets and never return. His current whereabouts are unknown.

ODDS: 1 to 10 against. Manhands would not have been able to overcome the Toker’s powerful mystical drugs. Were it not for Magorious and his mysterious companions, the Toker would still be the most powerful Bordertown underworld figure.

As you can see, honored reader, it is not really Manhands who has become the new king of the underworld; rather, it is Magorious and his Brotherhood of the Bloody Moon. It is, as Nikki has pointed out in today’s transmission, Magorious who has these questionable alliances with Doppelgangers, and. . . who else? Who were his mysterious companions who helped him turn the tide against the Toker? That is a question we can explore in the future.

But first, we have a more pressing concern. Has Manhands really captured Bryan? Please join me next time to find out.

Until then,

With Cognescentii blessings,

~The Traveller